Congratulations to Netanyahu and (finally) to Gantz

It looks like Gantz has finally seen the light and is about to join Netanyahu to form a coalition government of sorts headed by Netanyahu for the next 18 months.

A sound  resolution of the political crisis that has been getting more mind-boggling by the day,

A sound defeat of the folks who have been bad mouthing Netanyahu for a very long time who would not take my advice two years ago. to the day, on March 26, 2018.

On that date. I published  in this section a short piece titled Bad-mouthing Netanyahu   in which  I urged the Israeli and American lefties who keep bad-mouthing him  to stop doing that  The piece reads:

The bad-mouthing of Prime Minister Netanyahu by the Jewish American and Israeli left has become an obsession. A day does not pass by without someone or some organisation doing it. This bad-mouthing is further fuelled by the fact that not a day passes without reference to the on-going interminable police investigation of the Prime Minister’s suspected wrongdoings.

Yet, the Israeli electorate’s approval rating of Netanyahu and Likud instead of going down has gone up and is higher than for all the other Israeli political leaders and parties.

Since there is no empirical evidence or  reason to think that the Israeli electorate has taken leave of its senses, what is one to make of this inconsistency?

I submit that all things considered, the Israeli electorate cannot repose its trust in any of the other current and past political leaders aspiring to the high office, to do as good a job for the country as they think Netanyahu  has done and continues to do.

One would think that by now the critics of the Prime Minister would get this message and name one or more worthy successors to Netanyahu. The fact is that they have been unable to do so to date.

That being the case, and until they do, these all-knowing self-righteous folks should stop publishing their codswallop.

In the three elections that followed the publication of the piece, the lefties failed to come up with a worthy successor.And based on the behaviour and utterances of Benny Gantz,  the head of  the Blue and White conglomerate, I have no doubt that on a fourth election Netanyahu would be swept to power with a solid majority.

On Friday March 13 inst., of all days, I  published a follow-up on my previous piece titled Solving the Current Political Mess in the Spirit of  Purim. The piece reads:

As I exasperated about the current political mess of the governance of Israel, I came across an article by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks titled “Why Harry S. Truman Recognized the State of Israel, dated March 10, 2020.

Although I am not a practicing Jew, I am quite mindful of the existence of G-d and I am respectful of the lessons and wisdom imparted by Judaism.

With respect to the political situation at hand in Israel, the Megillat Esther tells us: Wherever we are, God is asking us to realise why He put us here, with these gifts, at this time, with these danger, in this place.

I now quote Rabbi Sacks:

“Towards the end of the fourth chapter we find Esther telling her uncle Mordechai about all the problems there might be in interceding with King Achashverosh regarding the fate of the Jewish people. Mordechai listens and then responds to her with the famous words” If you are silent and you do nothing at this time somebody else will save the Jewish people. But who knows, was it not for just this moment that you became a Queen, with access to King Achashverosh.”

“This for me, is the ultimate statement of hashgacha  pratit, Divine Providence, that wherever we are, God is asking us to realise why He put us here….He puts us here with something to do. Even in the worst hiding of G-d, if you listen hard enough, you can hear Him calling to us as individuals, saying “was it not for this very challenge that you are here in this place at this time?”

And I venture to say that  the fact that the outcome of the third election was finalised practically on the eve of Purim  strikes me to be more than a coincidence.

This suggests that God is in effect saying to the Jewish political leaders:    Was it not for this very challenge that you are here in this place at this time?”

And to my mind the key to resolving the present mess makes it mandatory for the  each and every leader opposing Netanyahu to ask  her or himself this question.

Starting with Avigdor Lieberman, he ought to ask himself:

Am I here in this place at this time to extract my revenge on Netanyahu at all costs come what may?
Am I here to help replace a highly accomplished Prime Minister with a novice that must heed and reconcile demands of his cohort of MKs to move in five different directions at this critical juncture?
Despite my three electoral failures, am I here to disregard spirit of democracy simply because that would not satisfy my insatiable thirst for revenge?
4. Am I here to remain silent while the Attorney General is seeking to  proceed  with the chicken-shit offences when the state is desperately in need of a stable government to deal with a whole host of critical problems?

5.Am I here to remain silent when the person with whom I made a political deal is resorting to destructive legal manoeuvres to defeat the democratic verdicts of the electorate that makes him a three- time loser?

OR

6.Am I here to put aside my grudges against Netanyahu and think solely  in terms of what is in the best interest of this country in terms of her safety, security, foreign relations and prosperity at this point in time and assist the party with the largest number of seats form the next government?

Needless to say Gantz and his bunch also will have to ask and answer similar questions and answer them.

Gantz in particular should be asking  two  questions of some importance to the future of Israel; namely

Considering I am a novice in governance and diplomacy and I do not have a particularly solid record of achievements in or out of the military or otherwise, am I here to grab this opportunity to join Netanyahu’s government as his understudy and learn the business of governance , risk management  and foreign affairs from a highly accomplished mentor, so that I will be better prepared to lead  a government in the future?

Let’s us pray that they will ask themselves these questions and answer them correctly as Esther did hers.

Amen.

Well, it looks like Gantz did ultimately ask himself these questions and finally found the right answer  and did that which was called to do.

The problem is that, having  done and said so many foolish things after the election, not to mention reneging on his electoral pledge concerning the United (Arab) List,  he took far too long a time  to do the right thing.

And,  had Gantz  been in Queen Esther’s shoes, the Jews would not have survived the slaughter planned for them, before she decided to intervene  to save them.

In the meantime, I still do not think that Gantz  has the right stuff to govern competently a country as complex as Israel.

Hence my advice to the American and Israeli lefties still stands. For the next 18 months, take a break from bad-mouthing Netanyahu and keep looking for a credible and worthy successor who could and would put Gantz to a deluxe political pasture before he  manages to sit in Prime Minister’s chair.

And this time, don’t be  smart asses and  do as I tell you if you want to keep any credibility in Israel.

As to the American Jewish lefties,never mind. Since I have nothing good to say about their politics, I will keep my peace and say nothing.